Real Gone Music to re-issue Grateful Dead, others

The newly formed Real Gone Music re-issue label boasts a diverse release schedule for 2011 and 2012 drawing from both major label licensing arms and independents, featuring such artists as the Grateful Dead, Connie Stevens, Rick Nelson and, kicking off Real Gone’s licensing arrangement with ABKCO Music & Records, Inc., ? and the Mysterians.

Real Gone Music, formed and helmed by industry vets Gordon Anderson and Gabby Castellana, aims to establish itself as the most eclectic and prolific catalog and reissue label in the country. The label has announced distribution through by Razor & Tie.

Anderson and Castellana each started businesses in 1993 — Collectors’ Choice Music and Hep Cat Records & Distribution, respectively — that became two of the most important outlets for buyers and sellers of vintage music recordings. Now, 18 years later, they have joined forces to launch Real Gone Music, a reissue label dedicated to serving both the collector community and the casual music fan with a robust release schedule combining big-name artists with esoteric cult favorites. Real Gone Music is a music company dedicated to combing the vaults for sounds that aren’t just gone — they’re REAL gone. What makes a piece of out of print music real gone?

The label won’t limit itself to any single era or genre. Rather, as Castellana says, “We want to put out titles that, through their repertoire and packaging, inspire the kind of excitement we all felt when we bought our first album or single in a record store . . . music you can lose yourself in.”

In his previous capacity at the helm of Collectors’ Choice Music, Gordon Anderson not only produced more than 1,500 titles for release on compact disc, but also merchandised the #1 mail order music catalog in the United States. Both the Collectors’ Choice Music label and catalog were renowned for their eclectic, knowledgeable assortment of artists and titles and their dedication to quality. Real Gone Music continues the Collectors’ Choice Music tradition, with a broadening of focus to include vinyl and digital releases as well as compact disc. Co-president Gabby Castellana started and built Hep Cat into a major American distributor for the world’s most prominent and respected reissue labels, among them Collectors’ Choice Music.

Real Gone Music will debut in November with 12 titles headlined by the Grateful Dead’s Dick’s Picks, Vols. 34, 35 & 36. “Dick” was Dick Latvala, the official tape archivist for the Dead until 1999, whose inspiration and encyclopedic knowledge of the band’s vaults spawned the fabled Dick’s Picks series of Dead concert volumes. Comprising 36 volumes, Dick’s Picks follows the band on its long, strange trip through a multitude of eras, tours and venues, featuring handpicked shows that display the band at its most visionary, improvisational height. Real Gone Music will bring this cache of Dead concert brilliance to record stores. Many have never been previously available at retail.

November will also bring two original albums from ? and the Mysterians, the legendary garage band known for the smash “96 Tears” on the Cameo label, available on vinyl for the first time in America since their original LP release. Real Gone will reissue the LPs, 96 Tears and Action, on 180-gram vinyl, re-mastered from the original tape sources at 45 rpm for maximum fidelity. Hailing from Saginaw, Michigan, this group of Mexican-American teenagers will forever be anointed as the garage band’s garage band by collectors of ’60s cool: the sound, an insistent three-chord beat powered by that unmistakable Vox organ; the name, taken from a Japanese horror film, and, of course, the sunglasses-donning “Question Mark” himself, who claimed to have been born on Mars and lived among dinosaurs in a past life. The debut album reached #66 on Billboard. And while the Action album saw no chart action, it contains the nuggets “Girl (You Captivate Me)” and “Can’t Get Enough of You Baby!”

Other November highlights include singles collections from ’60s songbirds Connie Stevens, Joanie Sommers and Shelby Flint, each boasting dozens of sides yet to see release on CD. The Girls From Petticoat Junction: Sixties Sounds features sunshine pop from the Hooterville Honeys (Linda Kaye Henning, Lori Saunders and Meredith MacRae), originally released on Imperial Records and timed to coincide with the release of the series on DVD. And, finally, Cameo Parkway: Holiday Hits features 18 holiday-themed tracks (13 never on CD) from the hallowed vaults of the Philly-based indie label by such artists as Bobby Rydell & Chubby Checker, Bobby the Poet, Rudolph Statler Orchestra, the Lonesome Travelers and, last but not least, Bob Seger and the Last Heard, while the label extends its holiday celebration to include long sought-after Christmas albums from composer-arranger David Rose and singer-actor Ed Ames.